Pentecost devotional: 8 - 22 June
Explore the powerful difference doing life with the Spirit can make with this two-week series for Pentecost.
Starting on Whit Sunday, 8 June, this daily devotional celebrates the influence of the Holy Spirit on our lives, our communities and our world. Written by Major Peter McGuigan, an Australian Salvation Army officer (minister) serving in London, UK, where he is Secretary for Communications at the movement’s International Headquarters.
‘The message of Pentecost is that we are not alone. In a specific moment in time, 50 days after the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, the Spirit of God was ‘poured out on all people’ – forever!’
Major Peter McGuigan
Read the series here on the IHQ website, on the Bible App or in the May - August edition of Words of Life.
Whit Sunday 8 June
ACTS 2
We are not alone
‘In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people’ (v 17)
In the still hours of early morning, I sometimes think about the very human experience of feeling alone. It’s my favourite time of day when, in the stillness and the silence, I sense God is present, the Spirit of God gently moving in the room and in my soul.
But my thoughts can drift to yesterday and to my impressions of people’s aloneness – the person on the park bench who I saw while walking; a couple who, although together when I saw them in a restaurant, seemed alone in their thoughts as they waited for their meals; or the group of teenagers who, while riding a train, I noticed sitting in silence, looking at their phones.
Sometimes I recall aloneness in the workplace. In a team meeting, unity and goodwill seemed to be lacking. The team members needed assistance from a power beyond themselves to blend their hearts, help them focus, and be creative in their planning.
The good news of Pentecost is that we are not alone; that the Spirit of God has been given to ‘all people’. Acts 2 records that there was no discrimination in who received the Holy Spirit on what we now know as ‘the Day of Pentecost’. Without exception, ‘all’ of the 120 people waiting in an upper room in Jerusalem for what Jesus had promised, were ‘filled with the Holy Spirit’.
And what happened in the room reverberated outside. The whole city was stirred. Fifty days after Jesus’ resurrection, God broke into the human experience in a momentous way. Everything changed. As people asked what was going on, the Apostle Peter announced that it was the fulfilment of ‘what was spoken by the prophet Joel: “In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people”’ (Acts 2:17).
All people! Praise be to God who acted decisively that day, once and for all time. We are not alone! The Holy Spirit is with us – the companion of our souls.
Prayer
Dear Holy Spirit, thank you that you are with me every moment of the day, amid busyness and relaxation, my relationships and my solitude. I pray for deep renewal of my life and my soul. Amen.
Monday 9 June
LUKE 11:9-13
Ask!
‘How much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!’ (v 13)
The Holy Spirit has been present through time immemorial, making the design of God for life real and tangible. During the process of creating ‘the heavens and the earth’, when the earth was ‘formless and empty’ and ‘darkness was over the surface of the deep’, Genesis 1:1-2 tells us that ‘the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters’.
Millennia later, at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit became personal. Suddenly the life-giving energy, love and personhood of God was released into the lives of people, both individually and in communities. It was God’s design for human beings all along. Jesus had said to his disciples: ‘Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you’ (John 16:7).
The New Testament book of Acts tells the story of how the Spirit came upon individuals and whole groups of people who believed in Jesus. In Acts 10, Jewish Christians travelling with the Apostle Peter ‘were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on Gentiles’ (Acts 10:45).
The Gospel of Luke records that the Spirit had filled Jesus’ life with everything he needed for his life and ministry, including to face his own personal challenges. ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,’ he announced as he started out (Luke 4:18-19).
Subsequently, in Acts, we can see that the Holy Spirit’s power in Jesus was like a precursor for all of humankind. All of us are meant to do life in partnership with the Spirit of God.
The best remedy for the world’s ills today is personal and corporate renewal of our faith in Jesus and our experience of the Holy Spirit. We should take Jesus’ advice: ‘Ask and it will be given to you…how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!’
Prayer
Dear Holy Spirit, I am so grateful that you are my constant companion and friend. I pray that, like Jesus, every day you will fill my life and empower my contribution to making the world a better place. Amen.
Tuesday 10 June
JOHN 14:15-27
The Spirit of Jesus
‘And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever’ (v 16)
How should we think of the Holy Spirit today? With the benefit of the Gospels, the book of Acts and a little hindsight, perhaps it is best to see the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Jesus.
Some might point to the Church’s mainstream Trinitarian faith and say that the Holy Spirit has a different role to that of Jesus; Jesus is Saviour of the world and the Holy Spirit our personal advocate.
Of course, those designations are true. But Jesus himself made it clear that as Advocate, the Spirit personifies Jesus in our lives. In other words, the Holy Spirit brings Jesus alive in us – Jesus as Lord, Jesus as shepherd, Jesus as intercessor, Jesus as teacher, Jesus as our healer and Jesus as the eternal curer of our souls.
Speaking in Australia last year, General Lyndon Buckingham said, ‘The Holy Spirit’s power is not found with having Jesus present, or even prominent, but is poured out when Jesus is pre-eminent in our lives.’
‘The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you,’ were Jesus’ words from John 14:26. Earlier in the chapter he had said that the Holy Spirit will ‘help you and be with you forever’ (John 14:16).
There is something beautiful about these words of Jesus spoken privately to the disciples, far away from the crowds of people that sought Jesus out. They were troubled by how he was starting to talk about leaving them; their journey with the Son of God might soon be over and they would be left alone. With deep love, Jesus shares with them a plan that they would not fully comprehend until Pentecost.
Two millennia later, we know the plan and we create our own disadvantage, our own lack of power and passion, if we fail to seek the full presence and partnership of the Holy Spirit in our lives, with Jesus at the centre.
Prayer
Dear Lord, thank you for your words and the assurance that I am not alone, but that, by your Spirit, we are journeying together. Like you did with your first disciples, please remind me daily of the reality of life lived ‘in the Spirit’, with all its potential. Amen.
Wednesday 11 June
LUKE 4:1-21
The example of Jesus
‘The Spirit of the Lord is on me’ (v 18)
During the course of his ministry, Jesus modelled for his followers what it meant to live life ‘in the Spirit’. Through the Gospels, he also models life in the Spirit to us.
Each Gospel shows that Jesus freely submitted himself to the Holy Spirit who came upon him in a remarkable way (Matthew 3:16, Mark 1:10, Luke 3:22, John 1:32). John adds that the Spirit remained with him and that, pre-empting Pentecost, Jesus later ‘breathed’ on his disciples and said to them: ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’ (John 20:22).
Jesus lived in the Spirit and made it a lifestyle. He rose early to pray and spend time being refreshed in the Spirit for the day ahead (Mark 1:35). Following his experience at the Jordan River, he was ‘full of the Holy Spirit’, ‘led by the Spirit’, and stared down temptation in the Spirit’s power (Luke 4:1-14).
The Holy Spirit flowed through Jesus as he healed and preached the good news of the Kingdom. ‘I know that power has gone out from me’ (Luke 8:46) he explained to the crowd when someone who needed healing had touched him. And in the synagogue at Nazareth he announced, ‘The Spirit of the Lord is on me…’ (Luke 4:18).
The disciples learned from Jesus that the Holy Spirit would be their counsellor, comforter and guide (John chapters 14-16) as well as the empowerer (‘power from on high’, Luke 24:49) of their lives. Jesus was able to share these descriptors with absolute integrity, not only because they were true, but also because Jesus experienced the Holy Spirit as his guide, counsellor, comforter, empowerer and the source of daily strength and guidance.
Through the Gospels Jesus opens our eyes also, to the life that is available to us when we align our hearts and minds with the Spirit. In this season of Pentecost, may we choose the example of Jesus for ourselves, giving up all that hinders to go into partnership with the awesome Spirit of God.
Prayer
Dear Lord, I want to follow your example and live my life in the power of your Spirit. So, Holy Spirit, I open my life afresh to you today. Please fill every part of me – my mind, my body, my emotions and my spirit. Thank you Holy Spirit. Amen.
Thursday 12 June
GALATIANS 5:16-26
Walking in the Spirit
I say then: Walk in the Spirit (v 16 NKJV)
It’s an exciting prospect to follow Jesus’ example and seek God’s Holy Spirit afresh in our lives for a new season of spiritual growth and vitality. In The Salvation Army we are praying in these days that throughout the world people from every nation and background will open their hearts to Jesus and experience the Spirit filling their lives.
But how do we retain the freshness and vitality we know we need to live as followers of Jesus in today’s complex, fast-paced world, especially over time? That’s an important consideration for us. Even Jesus, in his humanity, struggled sometimes to remain focused and retain his Godlikeness under the weight of life’s challenges.
It turns out the Apostle Paul has an excellent solution to retaining the freshness of the Holy Spirit’s presence. Just as many today have taken up walking for physical fitness, we can see our spiritual fitness as our ‘walk in the Spirit’ (Galatians 5:16).
I love this idea of ‘walking in the Spirit’ and Paul’s progression a few verses later of keeping ‘in step with the Spirit’ (Galatians 5: 25 NIV). Walking in the Spirit is about letting God carry the burdens in our lives – our tiredness, our relationship issues, our perceived lack of time, our temptations. These are all the things that can way us down and divert us away from a life lived under the power and guidance of God.
But walking in the Spirit is more than letting God carry the burden. It’s also about forward momentum as we step into God’s Spirit at the start of every day, saying, ‘Holy Spirit, I don’t have everything I need today unless I am in you. I step into you for the strength I need for my meetings today. I take on from you the love I need for the people I will meet today. I step into you for the energy I need, for the moral strength I need. I don’t have all the resources I need but I know that you do.’
For reflection
Consider all the benefits of ‘walking in the Spirit’. What are the burdens you carry that you can give to God and let the Spirit carry their weight and guide you towards solutions?
You can ask the Holy Spirit to help you live counter-culturally, believing and living into the Spirit’s power and insight, and knowing you are not alone. Amen.
Friday 13 June
LUKE 11:1-9
Another Pentecost
‘Ask and you will receive, search and you will find, knock and the door will be opened for you’ (v 9 CEV)
By now readers will have realised that this writer believes the world needs the Holy Spirit – an idea and an experience that goes back to that very first Pentecost.
Perhaps it’s The Salvation Army in me whose Founder once said we need ‘another Pentecost’. Or perhaps it’s the words of the late Billy Graham resonating in me from his book The Holy Spirit: Activating God’s Power in Your Life which I read in my twenties; or the challenge of the late General John Gowans’s words, ‘Holy Spirit! Promised presence fall on me’ that have become a permanent fixture in my morning devotions.
There have been other influences upon me when it comes to this notion but whatever they are, past or present, there is no question it has become my personal conviction: We need the Holy Spirit! I’m talking about a day-by-day journey with the Spirit of God.
There is a void or a lack in the human soul that most of us are aware of, like a hole in our lives that we don’t often talk about. This is a God-breathed space that only the Spirit of God can fill. It is a space for relationship, a spiritual space for people and the Holy Spirit to do life together. It’s a space of nurture and companionship, but also preparation and equipping for your personal contribution to the world.
Peter Marshall, the former United States Senate Chaplain, put it this way: ‘The Holy Spirit is the only force that can change people for good… and to want most of all to be a part of the answer to the world’s ills, and not part of the problem.’
How does this journey begin? Or how does it continue if it has been interrupted? It was Jesus who gave us the answer to this question. It’s a focus of our faith and our prayer. ‘Ask and you will receive,’ he said, ‘search and you will find, knock and the door will be opened for you’.
Prayer
Dear Lord, I need another Pentecost in my life and I want it to be a daily experience. In this season of Pentecost, please do something extraordinary in me that generates such a positive change in my life, that I know it could only have come from you. Amen
Saturday 14 June
JOHN 16:19-24
Asking and receiving
‘You haven’t done this before. Ask, using my name, and you will receive, and you will have abundant joy’ (v 24 NLT)
Every day we spend time asking questions. Can you give me the time? Can I borrow your pen? Can you approve my request for leave? Do you have a moment to talk? Asking is a part of our lives so familiar that its significance can be lost upon us.
We’ve even coined the phrase ‘it goes without asking’ to indicate a question for which the answer is obvious. But then there’s the more challenging saying ‘if you don’t ask you don’t get’, encouraging us to find the courage to ask.
As we saw in our devotion last Monday, Jesus was big on asking. No doubt he knew that human beings are afraid to ask. We may feel it appears presumptuous to ask or we won’t put the question the right way or we want to avoid the disappointment of a ‘no’ answer. There are many reasons for not asking when, in fact, we should.
But Jesus took asking a step further when he added the idea of receiving. ‘You haven’t done this before,’ he said. ‘Ask, using my name, and you will receive, and you will have abundant joy’ (John 16:24). In this scenario, receiving is just as important as asking, and the spiritual principle is complete when we ask and receive in the name of Jesus.
Asking for and then receiving the Holy Spirit in Jesus’ name is a spiritual principle the same as asking for and receiving Jesus as Saviour or asking for and receiving forgiveness. It is a key part of our walk with God. Asking in Jesus’ name puts the question to God with the confidence that he wants this joyful experience for our lives. Receiving the Spirit in Jesus’ name seals the experience in our hearts.
I encourage you to make spiritual asking and receiving a daily priority for your life and know the joy of the Lord that follows.
For reflection
What would it look like for you to make spiritual asking and receiving a daily priority?
Sunday 15 June
LUKE 11:9-13
A Prayer of Asking and Receiving
‘How much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!’ (v 13)
Jesus, thank you for the amazing way you came into this world and showed us the God-way to live. Sometimes I find it hard to believe it is for me. At other times it seems possible.
Jesus, I want to be confident about it, no longer doubting. So today I reach out and believe in you fully, holding nothing back – that your life and your death and your resurrection were for me, so personal yet for every person.
Please forgive my sins and my doubts and my unbelief. Jesus,
I receive your forgiveness and a full measure of faith in you.
I also reach out to you today Holy Spirit. I want to live my life in partnership with you and have an impact in this world for good and for God. I give you all that I am and I claim the promises of Jesus who said you would be my Guide and Counsellor, my Comforter and Helper – the one who empowers and inspires my life.
In Jesus’ name, please fill me with your strength and wisdom and the courage I need to make a difference in this world and to be part of the ‘new’ you are creating. Holy Spirit, I receive you as you fill my life – my mind, my body, my spirit, my future – with your presence and power.
I pray I will live in full partnership with you and that my life will reflect the amazing love and power of God.
Amen.
(From Major Peter McGuigan’s 2022 book A New Day: Writing During the Pandemic on Relationships, Responsibility and Spiritual Renewal)
Monday 16 June
JOHN 21
At the beach
And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age (Matthew 28:20)
Today, we change tack for this 2025 Pentecost series. Over the next few days, we will consider how the Holy Spirit moves in the lives of people in all kinds of places to bring about something better for them and those around them, reminding us that we are not alone.
Perhaps a good place to start is the beach. In the gospels, God moved powerfully on beaches, sometimes in the lives of individuals, sometimes in large crowds. The beach was the setting for the Apostle Peter’s restoration to leadership after his denial of Jesus. ‘Do you love me?’ Jesus asked Peter three times. ‘Yes, Lord, you know that I love you,’ Peter answered him. ‘Take care of my sheep,’ Jesus said.
The beach is a good place for us to go to experience spiritual restoration. We sense God is with us as the waves roll in with the kind of rhythm that could only be attributed to the Maker of Heaven and earth. We hear their breaking, see their movement, smell the sea, breathe in the sea air and can choose to feel the water mixed with sand between our toes.
A conversation begins to form deep within us. ‘I am with you,’ we sense the Spirit of Jesus saying. ‘You can trust me, do life with me, trust my guidance, trust the courage and strength I am giving you for every challenge and every opportunity.’ The Scripture also comes to mind: ‘And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age’ (Matthew 28:20). As we look out over the beach, we remember the psalmist’s prayer and find ourselves praying, ‘How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand’ (Psalm 139:17-18). Thankfulness and praise flow from our lips and our experience at the beach lingers long in our hearts.
Prayer
Dear Lord, I can see myself at the beach and, like Peter, you coming to me and restoring my soul and my confidence in you. I pray today that I will experience your glory as Lord and the giver of new life. Amen.
Tuesday 17 June
ACTS 10
In the home
While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message (v 44)
Not surprisingly, our homes are often the places we sense God’s Spirit more than in others. That’s probably because we spend more time at home than elsewhere, but there is something about ‘home’ that enhances the possibility of ‘God being with us’. It’s where we down tools and relax after a day’s work. It’s our personal space where we shut the door on the frantic pace of the world.
I often think of home as a haven, as free from intrusion from the outside as I can make it – including how often I choose to engage with my phone and how I set up my home to spend time with God. As the Taylor Swift song goes, ‘This is our place, we make the rules.’ Connecting with God at home can be a very real, sacred and regular experience because we can engage often and without interruption.
Of course, home can also be the place we experience more challenges than other places, especially resisting the human tendency to take those we love for granted. That can cause all kinds of dilemmas that require us to rewind, reengage and experience healing in our primary relationships. But that too can be part of our spiritual journey.
Jesus knew the value of ‘home’ as a key space for the nurture of our souls. In his encounter with Zacchaeus, a distrusted tax collector, Jesus insisted that he spend time with Zacchaeus at his house, away from the crowd that was following him. When Zacchaeus emerged, he was a different man (Luke 19:1-10).
It was in the home of Simon the Tanner that Peter had his prophetic vision of the gospel being for all people, not only for Jews. Subsequently, it was in the home of the Roman centurion Cornelius, filled with Gentiles (non-Jews), that Peter humbly and without hesitation shared the good news of Jesus. ‘While Peter was still speaking these words,’ Acts 10:44 confirms, ‘the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message.’
Miracles happen at home!
Prayer
Dear Lord, help me not to limit your guidance and your power in my life through my learned assumptions. Holy Spirit, please break through in my life to see all things through your eyes and for the greater good of your purposes. Amen.
Wednesday 18 June
PSALM 121
On mountains
‘I will lift up my eyes to the mountains’ (v 1)
My son Gareth is a landscape photographer whose body of work features mountains. Not only does he shoot his photos from ground level, but he’s the kind who climbs mountains to take photos of other mountains from thousands of feet into the atmosphere.
The result of going the extra mile is stunning. The majesty and symmetry of God are undeniable in his photos. You are struck by earth’s beauty on the one hand, and its grandeur on the other. Using his camera’s timing device, sometimes Gareth includes himself in a photo. His hands are lifted as he is swept up by the Spirit of God high above the earth below.
Jesus spent time on mountains, sometimes with crowds of people where the mountain formed a natural amphitheatre. There he introduced them to parables of the Kingdom of God that they could apply to their lives and circumstances (Matthew chapters 5-7). The mountain also became a place of miracles where people brought to Jesus loved ones and friends who experienced the Spirit of God flowing through Jesus and healing them (Matthew 15:29-31).
Sometimes Jesus went to the mountain by himself, seeking renewal of the spiritual and physical energy he had spent reaching out to others. At these times, the mountains were a natural place for Jesus, a place of solitude, quietness and refuge where he could pray and experience afresh the love of his Father in Heaven and the replenishment of the Spirit of God with all the resources he needed (Matthew 14:22-33).
We too need to go to the mountain, whether it’s a literal mountain close to home or one that we can see and go to in our heart. ‘I will lift up my eyes to the mountains,’ said the Psalmist. ‘Where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth’ (Psalm 121:1-2).
For reflection
Spend some time reflecting on Psalm 121. What does it mean for you when the writer says: ‘I will lift up my eyes.’
Thursday 19 June
LUKE 4:14-21
On the street
‘The Spirit of the Lord is on me’ (v 18)
If you look at the Gospels closely, you will see that the Spirit came to people in many different places because ‘the Spirit of the Lord’ was upon Jesus and so ministered through Jesus wherever he went. It’s like the Spirit and Jesus were connected 24-7.
The Spirit came upon people in surprising ways and often in busy and very public places. In Acts 2, the first messages coming from the now Spirit-filled followers of Jesus declared ‘the wonders of God’ and were heard on a crowded street in Jerusalem comprising ‘God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven’. They were ‘amazed and perplexed’ that they heard the messages, given by Galileans, in their own language (Acts 2:5-12).
Then in that same spot, Peter stood up with the other 11 Apostles, preached the first sermon of the Acts 2 church, and 3,000 listeners believed and ‘were added to their number’ (Acts 2: 41). Not long afterwards, Acts 3 tells us, Peter and John healed a man who had been lame all his life and who people passed daily as he begged for money at the temple gate called Beautiful.
Blind Bartimaeus received his sight on a crowded thoroughfare in Jericho (Mark 10:46-52). A woman who had been bleeding for 12 years was healed on a Capernaum street when she pushed through a crowd around Jesus and touched his garment (Luke 8:40-48).
The power of the Holy Spirit at work in Jesus and the Acts church was tangible and often very public. In modern times, the Church became reticent to open itself to such transparency let alone the power of God itself.
But times are changing. People in the 2020s are looking for spirit over material, soul care as well as physical fitness. Many believe that the key to the Church’s future, personally and corporately, is a reinstatement of full partnership with the Spirit of Jesus in which all of us can say, ‘the Spirit of the Lord is on me’.
Prayer
Dear Lord, help me not to lose the ability to be surprised by your Holy Spirit; to have an openness of heart and mind to what the Spirit is saying and each day to live in the Spirit’s flow.
Friday 20 June
JOHN 14:15-19
The Acts and the arts
‘And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you for ever’ (v 16)
The 1977 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind explored the idea that ‘we are not alone’, that other life forms may exist in the universe. The film featured the best of both visual and music artistry. Moviegoers worldwide left cinemas convinced the notion could be true, such was the mesmerising impact of masterful filmmaking upon them.
It occurred to me that reading Acts is not unlike being moved deeply by an encounter with truly great art – whether movie-making or theatre acting; inspired music-making, poetry or prose; or painting and photography that takes your breath away. The Acts of the Apostles and the arts are similar in how they can transport us beyond ourselves.
Like when you read Acts 1 and 2, you quickly see that Pentecost was a turning point for the world and can be for us still today. You are swept off your feet by how rapidly the very real experience of grief in the disciples on account of Jesus leaving them, and anguish as they dealt with the fallout from Judas’s betrayal of Jesus, moved to their life- changing experience of the Holy Spirit.
It is high drama that should move us to the core of our beings, not unlike our experience of great art that helps us to think again about our lives, our assumed reality, or our potential contribution to the world. The difference with Acts is that it delivers an access to spiritual power that lasts. Referring to Pentecost, Jesus said, ‘And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you for ever’ (John 14:16).
Action: I want to challenge readers to read Acts in one sitting. That might sound like a big ask, but it is seriously worth taking the time with a coffee in hand. Allow yourself to be engrossed by how the Holy Spirit is released into the lives of people who were either seeking something more or who were surprised by the Spirit and did not say no.
Prayer
Holy Spirit, you are the creative one, the Spirit of Jesus living in me. Help me to see your creative touch in all the world around me and not to be confident about your creativity in me. Help me to express the love and the power of God in ways that will inspire others and draw them towards you.
Saturday 21 June
ACTS 2:42-47
In our relationships
All the believers were together and had everything in common (v 44)
It’s a fact of life that human beings were never meant to be alone. You can trace it through the history of civilisations, as far back as the creation story itself. In the first chapters of Genesis, we find God forming the heavens and the earth, the sky and the waters, light and darkness, the land and its creatures and, finally, humankind – a man and a woman. The man came first but Genesis 2 records how God saw that ‘it is not good for the man to be alone’ (Genesis 2:18). So God created a woman and the two lived seamlessly, as one. They were Godlike in that they were distinctive persons but one in heart and spirit and mind and love. Then their disobedience towards God (Genesis 3) created shame in the human heart and we have been vulnerable to it ever since, like a wedge between humans and between humans and God.
Shame, on account of our sins, manifests itself in all kinds of behaviour including self-isolation or distancing; blaming others for our own shortcomings or mistakes; a lack of confidence in ourselves or even self-loathing; and feelings of inferiority, anger, jealousy and bitterness that can lead to acts of disloyalty and injustice towards others.
Despite our imperfection, we continue to live together in villages, towns and cities all over the globe such is the strength of the social side of our nature. Except for the recluses among us, most humans cannot live without other humans around them. That’s just how we are wired. So, life is complex because although we need each other we are our own worst enemies and can destroy even our most cherished relationships.
At Pentecost, God gave us a divine antidote for the shame effect that can, if we take the Holy Spirit’s presence seriously, liberate our relationships – in our marriages, our families, our friendships, our communities, our churches; wherever we put Jesus at the centre and open our lives to the Spirit coming with renewing, revitalising power. After Pentecost, ‘all the believers were together and had everything in common’ (Acts 2:44).
Prayer
Dear God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, I worship you and sense your glory. Fill me afresh this day with a real love for others; help me to see all people through your eyes of loving kindness. Then I will see their true selves and all their potential for good and for God.
Sunday 22 June
ACTS 2:1-4
‘Can you hear the wind of the Spirit?’
And suddenly there came a sound from Heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house (v 2 NKJV)
If you read the book of Acts in one sitting, you quickly realise that the Church universal today needs a fresh encounter with the Holy Spirit.
For some in the Church that will be a hard admission. Many of us are attached to a version of church which is ageing fast and has long been left behind by a world hurtling towards a new paradigm of what it means to be human; what gives life its meaning. Our attachment palliates the need for change.
It’s not that our goal of transforming society with the love and power of God is out of date. It’s often how we go about it that needs an overhaul and it’s how we open our lives afresh to the Holy Spirit of God that will energise a new start for us.
In Acts, one thing is clear. The Church is God’s, not ours. God came in incredible spiritual power to a people who were ready for such action, such expansion, such transformative mission; whose vision was the whole world for God, whose hearts were longing for God, whose priority was prayer, and whose passion was Jesus. In a very real way, the Acts Church was the pure water of Church.
Today, although in a different era and context, followers of Jesus need this same readiness of spirit and willingness to let go of the Church into the hands of God. We need to come with humility before God and admit that we cannot be the world-transforming Church God wants us to be without the power and full partnership of God’s Spirit.
We cannot be the people of holiness and powerful influence we aspire to be without a fresh and full measure of God’s Spirit washing over us and flowing out from us. We need to repent of spiritual lethargy, judgemental attitude and smallness of vision, and know the joy of our salvation again. And how desperately we need the unity of the Spirit and a freedom from our inhibitions.
Such a revival might begin inside our church buildings and homes but, like Pentecost, it will quickly burst out onto the streets and become revival in the marketplace. God wants unchurched people everywhere to experience the wind of the Spirit blowing through their lives, taking them to Jesus, transforming them, just as much as he wants the wind to revive his already followers and bring deep spiritual renewal to their lives and their mission.
The late General Eva Burrows once asked thousands of Salvation Army members in a packed auditorium in Sydney, Australia, ‘Can you hear the wind of the Spirit blowing through the gum trees?’ That’s a question for the ages that demands both a personal and a corporate answer.
The Holy Spirit came in power to the Acts Church. In fact, the Church wasn’t really the Church until the Spirit came. The Christian community today needs the Spirit to come in power again. This is not something we dream of for our future. It is a present reality and we need to claim it and live in it now – together.
For reflection
Have you ever been part of a community of faith where it was obvious that God’s Spirit was filling and blessing people abundantly, including you? What was it like?
What stands out for you in the book of Acts that is important for individual Christians and Christian communities today? Name two or three things.
If you could implement a ‘revival plan’ for your church, what would you put into it? How would it take shape?
You can go back to the Prayer of Asking and Receiving from last Sunday and open your heart and your hands and pray.
Notes and abbreviations
Unless indicated otherwise, Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version – UK. Copyright © 1979, 1984, 2011 by Biblica (formerly International Bible Society). Anglicised edition first published in Great Britain in 1979 by Hodder & Stoughton, an Hachette UK company. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
- CEV Contemporary English Version, © 1995 American Bible Society, New York, USA.
- NKJV New King James Version®, © 1991 by Thomas Nelson, Inc, Nashville, Tennessee, USA. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
- NLT New Living Translation, © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc, Carol Stream, Illinois, USA. All rights reserved.